April 2016

April 30, 2016

April 29, 2016

For someone who has moved into his third house in less than three years—not to mention perhaps the 30th one overall in 55 years—leaving one’s office after a couple of years is minor. Let me give this post some bogus context by saying that this is the last one I will be writing from this particular office in Warrenville in Illinois. I am fairly certain that not too many of my very few readers would know about Illinois. Hence they are unlikely to know and care about Warrenville and even less whether I stay or leave from whichever office. Or for that matter, even write.

For me though this office has been rather productive because I wrote two books during the past two years, ghost-wrote a novel and wrote, shot, directed and edited one feature length documentary which is now making its way through international channels to find some homes soon. All that is apart from the kind of grunt work that one has to do to stay afloat over treacherous waters of penury. All in all, one might say not bad. Not bad at all.

While all of this is rather satisfying, I am particularly thrilled that it was during these two years in my own office that I found some rhythm as a digital painter. During the course of my stay I must have painted over 150 artworks, many of which I have shamelessly promoted here without finding a single buyer. However, I did manage to sell some half a dozen scarves made using my paintings. In that sense, I outsold in my lifetime what Vincent van Gogh did in his. (Humor, people, humor.)

The following three paintings, done in rapid succession yesterday and today, illustrate my point about finding a specific rhythm with digital painting. They also articulate a changing mood from the first to the third. Not that there was any connection between the three works and my leaving this office but I might as well establish a bogus one. Remember, I started with saying I intend to give this post a bogus context. Titled Godhuli (Dusk-Twilight) from the first one to third you can hopefully see a somewhat impersonal work becoming a little more personal and evocative. That is indicative of how I am coming to terms with leaving this office. (Hahahaha, that is hilarious because the paintings and the office have zero connection.)

So that’s all there is to it. I had an office until today. Now I do not. The bird on the solid iron chain between the two worn-out wooden beams may choose to fly or just sit there through the night waiting for dawn to break on the opposite side.

April 28, 2016

Original verses imprinted on an original painting. What more do you need today?

Two random verses were born this morning as literary fraternal twins. As you can read, they are two very different ideas and yet they came out together. The backdrop painting titled ‘Godhuli’ (Dusk) was done last evening.

April 27, 2016

Today, I will just offer this one paragraph that sounds profoundly abstruse but may actually be absolute non-sense. I am even offering a visual representation of that paragraph above titled Crosshatch.

I can almost guarantee that if you were to say this in any serious gathering full of pretentious ignoramuses you would be hailed as a prophet. So here it is:

The universe is in a constant state of struggling equilibrium where amplitudes are perpetually canceling each other out. Those amplitudes that did not cancel each other out become what we call the observable universe, including us. The rest is just quantum foam forever in indefinable ferment where there is nothing real or unreal but just waves of probabilities.

April 26, 2016

Tate, London will host what it describes as “the first posthumous survey” of the Indian master Bhupen Khakhar’s career to be held in the United Kingdom. The exhibition will be on view from June 1 to November 6, this year.

Khakhar, who died in 2003 at age 69, was one of the luminaries of what is known as Baroda School, who elevated Indian narrative painting, or paintings that tell a story, to the international stage. He is regarded as one of the most significant painters to emerge from India in the 20th century. During a career spanning five decades Khakhar produced a sizable body of works, including oil, acrylic, watercolor, etching, woodblock, linocut, silkscreen, lithograph and drawings.

A quick survey of Khakhar’s works reveals to me a painter of both curiosity and detachment simultaneously. He was widely respected and emulated by his younger colleagues as evident in a 2004 tribute exhibition to his life. I recommend this site if you want to get a measure of his talent.

It is just as well that Tate is honoring him with a retrospective that does justice to him.

I saw the following untitled oil on canvas by Khakhar on a site maintained by Brian Weinstein and was inspired to do my tribute below it.

April 25, 2016

What until yesterday seemed like a ballsy move by India in issuing a visa to Uyghur dissident leader Dolkun Isa has in fact turned out to be a swift kick in the groin. The Indian media now reports that the issuance of the visa could well be a big blunder since Isa indeed has a red corner notice by the Interpol standing against him. The visa has subsequently been canceled.

New Delhi has not specified the reason for the revocation of the visa but it widely believed that Beijing’s protest could well have worked. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying had been quoted as saying in response to the reports of visa issuance, “What I want to point out is that Dolkun is a terrorist on red notice of the Interpol and Chinese police. Bringing him to justice is due obligation of relevant countries.”

Irrespective of the merit of that assertion India was not left with any choice but to withdraw the visa. The fact that a red corner notice is pending against him and the T word has been invoked by another country should be enough to take that course of action. A red corner notice is an international request among countries routed through the Interpol for the arrest of individuals wanted in a variety of suspected crimes. China is particularly anxious about the restive Muslim-dominated western Xinjiang where Uyghurs have been carrying out a campaign against Chinese forces. Uyghurs are one of the 55 minorities in China. Beijing is worried about a version of violent jihadist ideology taking hold in the region.

The Indian about-turn raises a serious question over how Isa was issued the visa in the first place. While the Interpol red corner notice often does not immediately raise a red flag in the immigration systems of many countries, his reasonably high profile should have been flagged for a deeper scrutiny than an electronic visa that he was granted.

It is inevitable that the cancellation will be viewed as New Delhi yielding to Chinese pressures even as Beijing has firmly stuck to its position of vetoing an Indian proposal to get the United Nations to designate Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar as a terrorist. The Chinese reluctance at the U.N. is linked to its longstanding strategic relations with Pakistan where Azhar’s close ties within its security establishment are well known.

The visa cancellation is a major foreign policy misstep which could weaken India’s position with China for a period of time but it is not something that can significantly mar bilateral prospects. In fact, some imaginative minds in the Indian government can even turn this around and claim how it is an instance of India’s principled foreign policy that unlike China, which appears to be taking the side of a known terrorist, New Delhi is quick to allay any such concerns. It involves some amount of clever spinning, of course.

On his part Isa has claimed that the cancellation may have come under Chinese pressure which in the larger scheme of things may not amount to anything consequential.

April 24, 2016

In reportedly issuing an Indian visa to Uyghur dissident leader Dolkun Isa New Delhi has made a ballsy foreign policy move whose eventual outcome may fall far short of its promise. However if true, just in and of itself though the Narendra Modi government has let Beijing know that it will not be easily trifled with.

The visa to Isa, which still remains somewhat unclear, is widely seen as the Modi government’s boldest gambit in recent years with China, prompted by Beijing’s refusal to sanction Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar. Beijing has repeatedly blocked Indian attempts at the United Nations Sanctions Committee to ban Azhar for reasons of its larger strategic relations with Pakistan. Pakistan as a whole matters more to China than a minor annoyance such as Azhar who is a key figure in Islamabad’s long used strategy of terror as an instrument of state policy.

As a rule India has not been known to openly provoke Chinese ire but the issuance of the visa to a Uyghur leader whom Beijing calls a terrorist is quite a remarkable move. In finely nuanced diplomatic language, it can be describe as Delhi telling Beijing up yours. Inevitably, the decision whose veracity has not been officially confirmed yet has riled the Chinese government. It is particularly provocative for China because it is worried about the restive Muslim-dominated western Xinjiang region where Uyghurs have been carrying out a campaign against China. Uyghurs are one of the 55 minorities in China.

The fact that Isa may attend a pro-democracy conference in Dharamshal, where China’s ultimate nemesis, the 14th Dalai Lama has lived since the 1950s, must be particularly galling. The optics of Uyghurs and Tibetans coming together to discuss democratic reforms in China are quite telling.

The reports of the visa issuance come against the backdrop of two high-powered visits by India’s Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval to Beijing in recent days. Even India’s Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj raised the issue at an India-China-Russia meeting in Moscow with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

India has traditionally chosen not to use the Dalai Lama’s presence on its soil as a lever of foreign policy dealings with China. The Tibetan Buddhist leader has gently pointed out many times, including to me, that New Delhi tends to underestimate its own strengths when it comes to China. It is from that standpoint that the reported issuance of visa to Isa (I am not trying to rhyme this but I admit to like the sound of it) ought to be viewed. I am sure seasoned foreign policy hands in Delhi must know that a single bold move like this is unlikely to move China from its intransigence over Azhar. However, as a step that articulates New Delhi’s growing unhappiness over it this is a fairly imaginative one. The idea is to shake up the things a bit.

At this stage, presuming a visa has been issued, it would be wise for Delhi to ensure that Isa does indeed visit India. It is a matter of showing the Modi’s government resolve. Of course, it wouldn’t be lost on anyone, the least of all Isa himself, that in this chess-playing between the two Asian giants his name might have got linked with Azhar by default. China has insisted that Isa is a “terrorist” with red corner notice from the Interpol and India should be mindful of that. Isa, living in Germany, has denied any terrorist link saying he stands for democratic reform.

As chairman of the World Uyghur Congress, Isa is a watched man by China. He is of course not anywhere near the same league as the Dalai Lama where Beijing is concerned in terms of its profound disaffection at political, cultural, emotional and philosophical levels.

As I said before, the eventual effectiveness of the visa in so much as it means moving China over the Azhar issue remains doubtful. Beijing thoroughly dislikes being seen to be pushed into a position. In the final analysis the visa may not mean much more than a minor shot in an ongoing back and forth between India and China.

April 23, 2016

You know you are in trouble when you dream ordinary dreams. Not that dreams can be consciously dreamed which makes it worse because even in your subconscious you have resigned to your trivial miseries.

This morning I had a dream about a flat tire by a highway. It was not from my car because even in my dream I had no car. The way it happened was I was standing by the highway without any particular purpose when I saw a car swerve off the road amid a burst of what sounded like an exploding tire. I do not recall having made sure if the driver was okay. My focus was on the tire that had come off the car along with its rim.

You may read apathy in my not trying to find out the fate of driver but instead concentrate on the tire. In my defense, I was a car mechanic who had a workshop off the highway. As I thought about it some more I realized I was waiting by the highway for some potential business. The exploding tire was one such opportunity.

After making sure that I had some potential money-making on hand I checked inside the car to determine whether the person who might actually pay me was in a healthy enough condition. She was. She looked a bit shell-shocked but did not seem to have suffered any injuries. The airbag had saved her and was now covering the steering wheel like a deflated condom.

I asked her if she was okay or needed any medical help. She said she was fine except that her oxblood red lip gloss had been severely smudged over her face. It gave the impression that her left cheek was bleeding. It was not. Once perfunctory humanity was shown, I told her what I did for a living. I told her I can fix her tire and rim.

“How much?” she asked.

“Is that the most important question for you right now? The nearest town is 30 miles from here. So unless you plan to walk, how much should not be that important,” I said.

She pretended as if she had not heard me. She leaned over the seat and grabbed some items from the back of the car, one of which was a copy of “Much Ado About Nothing.”

She came out of the car and began walking away. She held up Shakespeare and said, “Let’s not make too much ado about 30 miles.”

April 22, 2016

The earth is neither aware of nor would care about even if it was aware that today we are celebrating a special day in its honor. Earth Day for us humans should be more than anything else a reminder that we are incidental to anything that the planet does. This planet does not tailor itself for our survival. We have to adapt to its many variables. We must bear that simple fact in mind at all times.

In a related context I have frequently written about how Nature has no direct stake in sentient well-being. It does what it must do irrespective of its consequences on life. That is because Nature/Earth is inherently detached and unemotional even if people curiously ennoble it with the sobriquet Mother. Its affections, if there are any at all, are not motherly by any imagination.

My basic point has been that we are incidental to Nature/Earth whose primary purpose or for that matter any purpose is not to ensure that humans survive and flourish. At best we are an unintended consequence of the enormously complex natural forces that have existed since the existence of the planet over the past four and half billion years. Nature/Earth does not cradle us like babies, swaddling up in her motherly embrace. It couldn’t care less if we are around or not.

It is precisely for this reason that it is even more important that we respect what we have been unintentionally gifted by Earth. Its glories are so innumerable that one never really runs out of the planet’s unceasing magic. As nearly 170 countries today signed the historic Paris Climate Agreement at the United Nations today to mark Earth Day let us remember that the planet constantly seeks equilibrium within its working irrespective of whether in doing so it has to permanently terminate a species or a place. It has no affections for anything.

We do no favors to Nature/Earth and it does not care whether we worship it or not. Our determined assault on some of its components would force Nature/Earth towards a new state of equilibrium where we may not be around. It constantly makes and unmakes and remakes irrespective of whether we are there to applaud it or negotiate on its behalf.

For the overwhelming majority of the human race Earth will remain the only home even if we become a multi-planet species at some point in the near future. There is absolutely no way for the seven billion-plus people to be transported to another planet in the event that this one gets destroyed. We can all collectively decide that either we do not care what happens to the planet or do everything in our power to ensure that much of it remains hospitable to us.

April 21, 2016

Colonization is by its very nature predatory. Otherwise it would be just tourism. Colonization is meant for the benefit of the ruling elite of the colonizing power. These are just bare fact that must be kept in view while discussing issues such as whether Britain should return the Koh-i-noor diamond to India.

Once again the centuries-old 105.6-carat diamond is in the news because there appear to be renewed demand in India for its return. The Indian government’s official position as articulated by its solicitor-general Ranjit Kumar before the country’s Supreme Court is rather controversial. The Indian media quotes him as having described the diamond having “neither stolen nor forcibly taken away” but “gifted” to the British. If that is the official position, then there is no debate to be had.

The Koh-i-noor was taken by the British East India Company in 1850 from Duleep Singh, the last maharajah of the Sikh empire. It became part of the British crown jewels when Queen Victoria became the empress of India in 1877. Before that it is believed to have been passed around among royalties down the centuries like a flaming joint.

I have written about this a few times before but more from the absurdist position such as this one. Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron has flatly refused to return the diamond because he says he does not believe in returnism. Returnism, incidentally, is his way of describing Britain returning iconic properties stolen during colonial times by the retiring colonial power. He has been quoted as saying that if that was done the British museum will be empty. It is a measure of the historic plunder the English colonizers indulged in.

I wrote this on November 16, 2015 to illustrate the absurdity of the diamond whose name in Persian means “Mountain of light”:

I cannot imagine the 46-year-old prime minister walking up to the 86-year-old Queen Elizabeth II and saying, “Your Majesty, In the fitness of things and fairness of history, it is my government’s considered opinion reached after a strenuous internal debate that Great Britain ought to return the Koh-in-noor to India.”

It is hard for me to speculate how the queen might react to such a request. She might throw a royal fit (meaning tightly purse her lips) or she may just burst out laughing at the sheer improbability of the request.

Much has been said about how the diamond, which is now literally the jewel in the British crown, came to be extracted from the very young Duleep Singh in 1849. His father, the fabled Maharaja Ranjit Singh had been defeated by the British. Some people have claimed that the diamond was a sort of tribute paid to the British by the vanquished. I am not so sure.

Say for the sake of argument that the diamond was taken in 1849 when Queen Victoria was at the height of her power. Her rein began in 1837 and ended in 1901. This timeframe is important to bear in mind for the point I am about to make. Victoria was, in fact, the ruler of India in all practical sense earlier than she was formally proclaimed as empress of India around 1877.

It is here that I would like to quote from what I wrote about aseminal book ‘Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino and the Making of the Third World’ American author and historian Mike Davis paints an unnerving picture of India under the British rule, particularly during the period 1876-1880.

An opium-addled viceroy named Robert Edward Lytton presided over the destiny of 250 million Indians battling starvation. The country, then a British colony, was in the firm grip of a famine that devoured millions of people (some ten million) mainly because Lytton rejected state intervention in regulating the price of grain. Critics also blame Lytton’s ruthless implementation of Britain’s trading policies, including of the export of the Indian produce, for the famine.

Florence Nightingale, the legendary British social reformer and statistician as well as the founder of modern nursing, said this of the Indian famine, “The more one hears about this famine, the more one feels that such a hideous record of human suffering and destruction the world has never seen before.”

Davis, a respected historian, quotes reports from the period that speak of pariah dogs “feasting on the bodies of dead children” in southern Indian areas of Nellore and Madras Deccan. While India was being ravaged by starvation, Lytton was also busy organizing a major celebration to mark the proclamation of Queen Victoria as the empress of India. During the weeklong festivities, which saw “officials, satraps and maharajas” enjoy “the most colossal and expensive meal in world history” it was estimated by a journalist that 100,000 people starved to death in Madras and Mysore.

One must see the return of the diamond with this as the background to remember the extent of cruelty and misanthropy on display just a couple of decades after the Koh-in-noor was taken from India and handed to Victoria.

Keeping up the absurdist vein of the subject I have frequently suggested the following.

It seems highly unlikely that the British royal family will return the diamond in the foreseeable or not so foreseeable future. They just love it too much. So as an alternative here is what I suggest India press for from Britain.

Treat the Koh-in-noor as India’s collateral with Britain. Against that collateral let India enjoy the following benefits in perpetuity or until such time as the diamond is returned.

For every year that the Koh-i-noor stays in the British crown, Britain allow 100,000 Indians to migrate to the country, no questions asked. None. Britain should accept 100,000 Indians for the next 20 years. I mean even if these potential immigrants had gone out for an evening stroll past the British high commission in Chankaya Puri in New Delhi and decided on a whim to settle down in Britain.

To make it more practical, let these 100,000 annual immigrants be selected by a national lottery in India. They do not even have to come to the British high commission or any other mission to apply for their permanent residency. Those papers should be overnighted to them and every expense should be borne by the British government.

These 100,000 annual migrants should have secure job guarantees from the British government at the minimum wage of 20 pounds an hour for the least qualified among them at least ten years. When they land at Heathrow let Britain arrange for their transport, lodging and boarding. Of course, Britain will also pay for their airfares and maternity leave.

Require that the English cricket team lose every other match, Test, One day or T20, against India for the next 50 years. And they just can’t throw the matches. They have to come up with inventive ways of making each one thrilling before inevitably losing.

Require Prince Charles to visit India every year by flying commercial. In India he should do mandatory social work for a period of four weeks annually until such time as he becomes the king. Once he becomes the king, he should host 100,000 destitute Indians (separate from 100,000 annual immigrants) to week-long festivities to compensate for the excesses of Queen Victoria.

I will think of some other ways to compensate for their refusal to return the Koh-i-noor. For now, this seems like a reasonable first step in a long bargain.